"Mister," he asked excitedly of a little man leaning against a post, "what's this?"
"Have ye missed your way and got onto the wrong ferry-boat?" replied the little man gleefully. "I did it once myself. All right, my boy. You've got to go to Staten Island this time. Take it coolly."
"Ferry-boat?" said Jack. "Staten Island? I thought it was the end of the street, going into the Battery!"
"Oh, you're a greenhorn!" laughed the little man "Well, it won't hurt ye; only there's no boat back from the island, on Sunday, till after supper. I'll tell ye all about it. Where'd you come from?"
"From Crofield," said Jack, "and I got here only this morning."
The little man eyed him half-suspiciously for a moment, and then led him to the rail of the boat.
"Look back there," he said. "Yonder's the Battery. You ought to have kept on. It's too much for me how you ever got aboard of this 'ere boat without knowing it!" And he went on with a long string of explanations, of which Jack understood about half, with the help of what he recalled from his guide-book. All the while, however, they were having a sail across the beautiful bay, and little by little Jack made up his mind not to care.
"I've made a mistake and slipped right out of the city," he said to himself, "about as soon as I got in! But maybe I can slip back again this evening."
"About the greenest bumpkin I've seen for an age," thought the little man, as he stood and looked at Jack. "It'll take all sorts of blunders to teach him. He is younger than he looks, too. Anyway, this sail won't hurt him a bit."
That was precisely Jack's conclusion long before the swift voyage ended and he walked off the ferry-boat upon the solid ground of Staten Island.